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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Luksong Tinik (thorn hurdles).This is a very common game played largely by girls ages between 7 to 12, though, in some areas, boys join in. This game is played outside with players divided into sets, comprising of the mother ('inay) and her child ('anak'). The 'it' are two players who seat facing each other, stacking their feet and hands together, gradually increasing the height while the opponents jump over it. Any 'child' player who touches any part of this hurdle is saved by the 'mother' who would jump on the former's behalf. If she, too, fails to accomplish the feat, both 'mother' and 'child' becomes the 'it' who would assume the seated position.source

When I was small (and Christmas trees were tall) my friends and I used to play luksong tinik. We had a playmate who was "madaya". She would ask the " it", to lower the hands so she can jump over.Talisod pa rin.

Our economy is like luksong tinik. The economic team asked the target to be lowered from, 6 per cent to 5 per cent.

photocreditIn the far away kingdom in Asia, lives a prince. He is one of the attractions in the celluloid palace. But the prince appears that he is not what he claims to be. No worry, thought the publicity arm of the kindom. As long as there are women who'll shriek to the "kilig" moments, they can always come up with damage control plan. In the past, every time his secret life was at the risk of being revealed by the kingdom's press, the publicity group paired him with the most popular princess. Then the romance simply faded away.

In the last few years, he became bolder. His sightings with his special friends worried the think tank machine. So, what was best decision was to pair him with another beautiful princess. The princess must have already an inkling of his personality but she has fallen...madly in love or she was challenged that she can change him. She liked to give up several times but she would find herself going back to his arms again. Kilig din siya. Never mind if it is just for a show. While she was crying buckets of tears, the prince would just dismiss it as simply as lovers' quarrel.

But then another talk show needs a new " pakulo". So came the interview. Would you believe that the counts and the countesses did not give their blessing for the " tell-but-not-really-tell-all" interview? Would you believe that they can afford their prince to lose his fans? There should be the do's and don'ts to define the boundaries of the expose. The people waited with bated breath. Is he or is he not? The revelation was a disappointment however. It just made the issue full of more questions. Congrats to the think tank. They made people glued to their seats while the couple was singing love songs to people who are unaware of the status of their love story.

No mention of the real cause of the split." Make it vague". could have been the order. Let the viewers come up with conclusion. The prince's mystic is going to be protected. He's a moneymaker of the kingdom.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Philippines' tourist arrivals of 3.5 million last year was one of the lowest among Asian nations. Malaysia had 34.6 million; Thailand, 15.8; Singapore, 11.5 million and Indonesia, seven million. Vietnam received 5 million tourists in the same period.

According to the news, the Department of Tourism would like to make the Philippines a haven of divorcees? Bakeeet? Ito ang explanation ng DOT.

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines as a divorcee haven? In an effort to lure more long-staying tourists in the country, the Department of Tourism (DOT) is developing the Philippines as a destination for divorcees or those trying to recover from broken relationships.Tourism Assistant Secretary Domingo Ramon Enerio III said those running away from domestic turmoil are among the target markets of the DOT for its long-stay tourism program.“At this time, the Philippines is among the few remaining countries that still prohibit divorce, so we think this is a big market that we hope to tap,” he said. “If we can be a wedding or honeymoon destination, we can be vice versa and become a destination for those in search of personal fulfillment, including those… in flight from domestic turmoil,” he added.He said the Philippines can offer both relaxation and adventure to these tourists.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Once Upon a time, there was a princess. She fell in love madly with a prince charming. The relationship was said to be doomed from the start because the princess felt that the prince does not behave like a good boy friend should.

There had been rumors that they are already separated but in the kingdom, separation should be certified authentic by the publicity office which claims exclusive and explosive interview of the parties concerned by a host who pretends to think before asking question when in fact, it is already scripted.

Yesterday, there was an interview done but there was nothing new that was discussed. The most awaited moment of truth did not come. The palace should protect the other party. He is also one of their royalties. What was implied in the interview was that the princess can no longer bear heartache of knowing that his prnce is really her FAIRY godmother. Baka nag-agawan sila ng pink undies.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

photocredit Four lounging pants were my only loot last Black Friday. The discounted price was half the regular,You know naman, I do not go out often so I am always in my lounging pants aka pajama. Besides, it is winter here in the States where shorts is a no no even with a centralized heater. Besides, it is more comfortable to wear loose pants especially if you are using diabetes med injectables.

For someone sick with the C, the doctor expects weight loss without having to lift the fingers to do some calisthenics. But I do all the time especially when I am browsing in the internet. Nageexcercise ang daliri ko.

And it was when I was browsing that I found someone claiming to have finished an MBA in a prestigious university wrote something about concepts which she did not understand. If I were the professor, I could have not passed her without asking her to write 100 times...The ROI is expressed in terms of per centage while payback period is in terms of months and the cash flow is the expected receipts from a proposed investment for a given period of time. When you are asked of the expected performance of an investment proposal, you might say, the ROI is 5 per cent; the investment will be recovered after three years and the annual cash flow from the project is -----pesos or dollars. If you are not sure, skip the topic. Hindi mahahalatang rider lang kayo noong MBA days ninyo. Tseh.

Hindi pagtataray yan. I am attacking concepts and not the physical attributes of people. Palusot pa.

Just CompensationWhat is just compensation?The President is urging DAR to see to it that the HLI owners (Cojuangcos) should receive just compensation for the land that they are about to give up. (Isn't the land bought from the proceeds of the government loan? Granting that they should pay. what determines the just compensation? It is the court daw which is going to determine the just compensation. Interesting. Buhay pa ba ako noon?

When implemented, this distribution type for corporate farm should have given the farmers share of stocks of the hacienda. The certificate of stock is an evidence that the farmer is a part owner of the hacienda. As part owners, they have the right for dividends when the corporations declare one at the end of the year. But wait, there is a catch. Only when there is income and available retained earnings earmarked for that purpose. O sabay-sabay. Buhay pa ba kami noon?

The new Supreme Court decision disallows the stock distribution but I think, there is a suggestion to let the farmers chose this option if they want to. Waiiisss.

Assuming that the farmers have to pay for the cost of the farm, what is considered just compensation.

In a corporate setting, the value of the company is dependent on its stock--not the par value but the book value.

And how do you compute for the book value? Easy. The Paid-up capital stock plus the retained earnings divided by the number of shares outstanding. The retained earnings account is the accumulated profits for the past year. So if there were no profits, the amount will be negative and will be subtracted from the capital. What if the negative retained earnings far exceeded the capital stock like?

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Ordinarily, a fish is not a fish without fish scales. For the fish to be adjudged Miss Bangus or Miss Tilapia, its scales should be serving their purposes--protection and identities and they should be made of materials that addressed to these two functions.

When NAIA was rated as the worst airport in the world, the basis of the ranking were the reviews of travelerswho complained, among other things, of “safety concerns, lack of comfortable seating, rude staff, hostile security, poor facilities, no (or few) services to pass the time, bribery, being kicked out and general hassles of being in the airport.”

If it were a fish, the evaluation was not only about its fish scales ( TSA) or security but the whole enchilada--the scales, the tail, the eyes, the bodies...etc.

So when DOT Secretary Roxas touched on the security of the NAIA, he was just talking about the scales.

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) may be one of the world’s worst airports, but passengers passing through the aging Manila facility need not fear for their safety, the government said on Friday.In a statement, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said Naia recently passed with flying colors a safety audit conducted by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

But we are not only selling fish scales. We are selling the whole fish.

Some parts of the whole that need some changes do not require millions of pesos to make the airport at par with other international airports . These are hostile staff, bribery practices which eat up most of the time of the staff, thus good services are not delivered.

The officials are always ready to defend the administration's incompetence even to the extent of talking about fish scales instead of fish

In my previous blog, I implied that I did not rejoice the news that a former friend of mine was losing her house due to foreclosure. I LIED. Being human made me feel that I have every reason of feeling triumphant for the perceived payback of my friend's wrongdoing which made me fall into depression for years.

I can not say it is schadenfreude . It is more of retribution. She destroyed my career; she made me lost my self-esteem by allowing me to believe that my work did not meet the boss' expectations.That I am losing it--that of being an efficient and conscientious corporate slave.

It is also my fault to harbor such feeling. To believe her about myself. I had forgotten that there were bigger BUMPS that came my way and I was able to hurdle them. The people involved were more powerful and yet I never said die or give up.

Last night, I realized what I had become, Kahit na ang kantang SAPAGKAT KAMI AY TAO LAMANG is not a justification for me to gloat on my friend's ill fortune. I guessed, I am not a candidate for being a saint.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

As if you do not notice, mine is a humor blog. Trying hard nga lang. You need to tickle your funny bones to laugh after finding the humor which is like a proverbial needle in the haystock in an article pretending to be serious but falls short of the grade.

Before the video of the spokesperson of the SC became viral, I could have posted it in my blog to elicit laughter. But I didn't. I do not want to make fun of the demeanour of an individual due to her/his gender orientation or which was shaped by his upbringing.

I used to have three male faculty members who were suspected of being members of the third kind--- but they were not. Why did I write this in past tense? Because these three had already passed away. One from aneurysm, the other one was due to stroke and the youngest was a victim of robbery. The youngest faculty staff had a female "extracurricular" activity which contributed to the dissolution of his marriage. Some students asked me if he was " bakla"because of his effiminate mannerisms. I answered an emphatic no. The other two were also married and had several well disciplined children. Pero mahihiya si Supsup sa pag-imbay ng balakang.

Even if it were true that the these men had secret lives, as long as they did not molest or took advantage of the students, I would not have minded. No one is perfect.

A NUMBER of Cabinet members of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who were stumped by the increasingly strident and mean tone of ex-colleague Leila de Lima against her former boss, were overheard sharing notes Saturday night at St. Luke’s in The Fort, trying to divine De Lima’s complete, canine devotion to P.Noy for the justice secretary to even defy the Supreme Court.In the course of the post-mortem, one ex-Cabinet member revealed that De Lima had appealed for economic assistance right after she was appointed by GMA as human rights chairman, with the feisty lawyer complaining about the meager government salary. The long and the short of it was that GMA, according to the ex-Cabinet secretary, gave a million reasons a month for De Lima to thereafter look on the brighter side of life. This monthly blessings, added the former De Lima colleague, can be validated at the Land Bank branch in Malacañang. The Cabinet member’s story was confirmed by another ex-Cabinet colleague, who wondered if De Lima had fessed up to P.Noy about how she could be an exhibit “A” for Kim Jacinto-Henares’ Tuwid na Daan campaign. There was an added happy ending to this heretofore unknown story; because of the monthly blessings, De Lima has managed to employ the services of a particularly loyal driver,

a luxury that the wife of Michael Ray Aquino and the Ping Lacson boys had only been too eager to talk about not too long ago.

Power and Money--It makes you forget who your friends were. Have you seen the picture of Soliman lately in the news grinning ear to ear. At first I thought, she was the clone friend of GMA befire their falling out, You can see her side by side with the ex-president wherever she went. Can I categorize under her Friend with Beef.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Dear insansapinas,I was looking for one of my best friends for more than six years. I found her at last. She is buried in the Manila Memorial Park. She had been dead for six years now. Breast cancer. No one knew. She made her daughter promised not to tell anybody.

I met her in the Graduate School. She was teaching Marketing Management and I was handling Management Accounting and Financial Management. Together with a lady lawyer, we formed a triumvirate. Mas maganda raw siya sa akin ng isang paligo.

Our children became close to each other. While we were in our classes, they're playing or just talking inside the cars.

One night she came to me. She was depressed. Her irresponsible husband left her to live in with a starlet who is a relative of a popular actress. I allowed her to crush in my couch. My friend who can not leave a house without even the basic make-up looked like she did not have bath for days. I made her go to Quiapo Church to seek for solution to her problem.

Later that week, I learned that she burned all the clothes of the husband. Her youngest son stopped talking and smiling. He became a trouble maker in the exclusive school in Alabang.

Then they reconciled. She helped him go to the US. He was able to get a greencard and petitioned for my friend and their youngest. A woman from the US met her in the Philippines and confided to her that she was having relatiionship with her husband. She promised to give her a lot of money if she would divorce her and allowed them to settle as husband and wife. Little did the woman know that my friend had two houses in Ayala Alabang and the bread winner of the family ever since. She owned a company.

But what my friend did not know was, her husband and the starlet were seeing each other even in the US. When he got his citizenship, he divorced my friend.

I saw her last when I visited the Philippines in 2003. The three of us, the lady lawyer spent the whole day in Tagaytay doing nothing but talk. We were trying to match her daughter with a bachelor friend of mine. We're all down to earth. She was from Ayala Alabang but you listen to her shout invectives when her car was blindsided by another car. Paalala ko sa kaniya,pare, professor ka, and she would answer, oo nga pala ano pare. TAn#$%^&&. buti pinaalala mo. Our lady lawyer is more refined having graduated from an exclusive girl's school and her law from UP. The most that she can say is Anak ng pating talaga... Ako ang pinakaconservative. Ang masasabi ko lang ay itong batok gusto mo? Ooops.

She came to San Francisco and we had a lot of girl moments. She was dancing with her Pjs and role playing some starlets while our videocam was on. We were not drunk of apple juice.

After that she vanished from the face of the earth. The phone line was disconnected. I tried to contact her thru friends.... Nobody knew where she went.

Until tonight, when my lady lawyer friend asked me if I am depressed, I thought she will be seeking advice how to avoid depression. Since my other friend (classmate in the Graduate School) had a stroke, I felt sorry for him for being unable to talk. He did not want to be pitied so he avoided talking with anybody. Last September, another friend died of stroke. There was a time when I do not feel like talking to callers.

photocreditMy mother had fifteen other siblings. Some from the previous marriage of my grandmother. My mom was the youngest. I never had the chance to see my uncles and aunts in my mother's side except for my aunt who was only a few years older than my mom and was one of the three children in the second marriage--that of my grandpa's.

They're so big a family that every meal was like a banquet. The house was big, like a train that was so long with more than twenty rooms to accommodate also the extended family. You see my grandma used to take in orphaned relatives, nieces who became homeless due to separation and or any relatives that extended their vacations/invitations.

Now why do I have to subject you to reading the description of our old house which was reduced to two-bedroom house when it became an empty nest. Wala ng ibon. Wala na ring itlog. Whoa.

There was the master bedroom and a big room for visiting relatives especially the grandchildren. I remember, my grandmom would bring out the big mat and big mosquito net so that we would sleep together on the floor. The blankets were also big and heavy. Hindi uso sa lola ko ang kasabihang pag maiksi ang kumot, magtiyagang mamaluktot.

I did not actually see the house at its splendour with a big porch and a living room with a grandfather clock. It was my mother who told me everything. The dining room was bigger with a table that can seat more than a dozen. Nandoon pa yon noong dumalaw kami. Made from kamagong or narra siguro. Noong bata ako, ginawa naming playground. Yong iba kong pinsan, ginagawang ping pong table. There were also two kitchens. One was where the foods were being kept warm and the other one was where the gory side of cooking were done like butchering a small pig or dressing several chickens. One chicken was not enough for the family.

What's the point of the discussion? It is the senior moment where a person forgets what she's going to do the moment she walks to another room and the possible solution to remember is to retrace the steps from where she has originally come from.

This senior moment is referred to by the experts as a doorway or an event boundary.

It appears, the mind regards a doorway as something experts call an ‘event boundary’, signalling the end of one memory episode and the beginning of another.Psychologists found the brain tends to file away events and memories from one room as soon as it exits into another, storing information in successive chapters or episodes.The latest research, published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, shows doorways act as a kind of trigger for the brain to file one chapter and move on to the next one.

I do experience this "senior moment" even when I was still young. Imagine if I have lived in the house of my grandparents when it was not downsized yet. By the time, I reached the last room, I must have forgotten my name.

Anyway, the doctor said this is not yet a sign of ALZ (thank God, whoa) but forgetting to take medicines (ooops, did I take the meds today? ) and the names of loved ones (Sino ka nga ba? ) require already the doctor's intervention,

You are familiar with sleep walking and sleep eating. There is a new disorder in town. It is called sleep texting. Symptoms inlude twisting and turning before catching the zzzzzz. And the moment, a person is asleep, she reaches for the cell phone and texts a friend or a relative.

Unlike in San Francisco where there are several Catholic churches, in other states and countries, there are only a few. These churches are open only on certain times of the day and are closed even when there are masses going on for fear of gangs breaking in and entering during the religious ceremonies.

During Sundays, families go to church for Sunday service but you will be going out more as a sinner than when you came. Naku Day huwag kang mag--stay doon sa likod. The teeners are not even praying. They' re flirting, texting and or gossiping. You can't concentrate when you are praying. NJakikigossip din ang tainga mo. So I am glad to learn that you can hear mass from Quiapo online mow.

MANILA, Philippines—Now, devotees and parishioners from all over the world need not come to the Philippines just to hear Mass in Quiapo Church, home of the centuries-old image of the Black Nazarene.

Only recently, the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Manila, introduced the online streaming of its regular Masses, its rector, Msgr. Jose Clemente Ignacio, announced Sunday.

Ignacio said the live streaming service was initiated following numerous requests from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), mostly devotees, who want to hear Mass but could not do so because of their circumstances.

“At least it could help them and it would also nourish their faith,” said Ignacio through the CBCP News, the official news service of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

The live streaming of the hourly Masses—through the church’s website www.quiapochurch.com—begins from 4 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and resumes at 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Fridays.

The Holy Hour or the Eucharistic adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, scheduled at 3 p.m., also on Friday, can also be viewed live.

All of the Sunday Masses from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. are also broadcast online, including the 3 p.m. Children’s Mass or the Misa Pro Populo.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Inspired by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's portrayal of a cancer sufferer in the heartwarming film "50/50," a 26-year-old woman who's battling cancer in real life made a video asking the actor to go on a date with her.

"OK, I admit: It's ridiculous," Miller said. "And it feels like I'm making a big leap from being an anonymous cancer 'liver' a few months ago to now starring in my own video. But, life is short. So, why not?"

A few years ago, I looked for a way to grant the wish of a boy named Pyro, the nephew of a friend/blogger who was dying of cancer. He wanted to see a wrestler, Batista. I documented these with entries in the Now What, Ca t? I have to write the newspapers here in the US to ask help. It was his website administrator who responded and I did not know that he also lives in DC with a Filipina wife.

After using some contacts in the network in the Philippines, ABS CBN ignored my request. It was Jessica Soho who helped the boy fulfill his promise. I did not care if I was nor given credit. He died in December.

This was my entry on Sept. 19, 2006.

Dear mouse,
If you have watched Shawshank Redemption you should know that Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins)had written two hundred letters before he received a favorable response from the addressees. I can not do that, I will be labeled spammer.But I did write many people regarding pyro’s wish. I sent e-mails to the following:
1. Washington Post ( Batista and family are from Washington DC). A computer generated reply was sent to me that the letter is sent to people who may be able to act on it but there is no assurance.

2. Philippines News
The columnists, Rodil Rodis, Ludy Ongkeko, Beting Largo and Cristina Pastor are active in the Bay Area’s Filipino communities. The newspaper is well read by Filipinos who may know the family of the Fil-Greek wrestler whose wife is also a Filipina.3. Benjamin Pimentel
A blogger and a news anchor in the Bay Area’s US Balita, he is also a correspondent of SF chronicle that features stories of human interest.4. Asian Journal is a Philippine newspaper in the USA5. BBC -Well, if they can feature stuff such as the height of a smurf and feedback from young generations, why can’ they not feature a picture of a small boy sick of cancer with a simple wish?As of now, I have no feedback which made me think, what is newsworthy or worthy to be published? I have not received daemon mails so I presumed that the e-mails must have been received. Must be those thousands which were not read?In the local media (Phils) my e-mail was forwarded to ABS-CBN news department (courtesy of Ian del Carmen) but I do not know if somebody cared to read it but a news about pregnancy of a popular host made a breaking news in a daily online-newspaper. Retz contacted some of the people he knew in the broadcast media but no words yet.One reader of Batjay, leah
wrote the World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and the The Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Chris Greicius Awards.To those whom I have e-mailed and those who have read the blogs but did not respond to join the blog brigade, I am assuming that you just do not find this cause, blogworthy?Am I to believe that bloggers bond only when they come to the rescue of a beleaguered fellow blogger who needed some emotional boost?Am I to believe that wishing to see a favorite wrestler is “baduy” for a three year old kid and therefore is not blogworthy ?So I appreciate those who took time out from their regular blog programming to help spread the news.yuga, brownpau, titorolly , tambay, rickey, (see his sidebar) expectorants,blogging bugs, my life.. a cup of deja brewluchie of Singapore,VespinoyAngel Viloria ,Retz (see his photoshopped pic of pyro and batista), leahmumfordlang ,linnorand jaypee.

If you have blogged and you wish your name to be included in the list, just write in the comments box. It works. May kasabihan, ang walis tingting, mas matibay kung hindi magkakahiwalay. This is not also the time for playing anonymous because numbers count.Even if you are not a blogger, you can help by contacting any person who you think can help us spread the news, offer prayers for pyro or simply visit pyro’s site (maintained by his aunt MEC to leave comforting words to the family. The Ca t

Faith is my life

Healing Prayer

For the good times

I can see clearly now

Ghost

Life is like water

Pinaysaamerika

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About me

About the Blog

This is a blog about the adventures and misadventures of a Filipina in the US of A who wants to save the world from clutches of evil but is too lazy to don her costume. It also includes her reminisces of her journey of life in her birth country. Sinimulan ko ito ng 2004 at pansamantalang iniwan ng magbukas ako ng marami pang blogs katulad ng Now What, Cat?. Ngayon na pinahihinga ko ang aking pusa, dito naman ako nanggugulo.